Submitted by John Stauber on
Ralph Reed, the hard-ball political organizer and brilliant PR strategist behind the rise of the powerful Christian Coalition, went to work for Enron just as George Bush began his drive for the presidency. According to sources in the New York Times, top Bush political advisor Karl Rove recommended Reed to Enron (where he received ten to twenty thousand dollars a month) "to keep Reed's allegiance to the Bush campaign." We report in our book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, how Reed and his Christian Coalition worked on campaigns in legally questionable ways. Today Ralph Reed lives in Atlanta where he is Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and runs a public affairs firm, Century Strategies, that specializes in corporate-funded "grasstops" lobbying. His website brags: "few know that he's good friends with Karl Rove, George W. Bush's chief strategist, and ... it was Reed's grass-roots efforts that helped Bush win several key primary victories."